Word: x-rayed
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...country's own work crews but the major construction must be done by citizens of the host country. Though fine in principle, that led to some sticky situations. In 1983 Soviet workers halted work for several weeks on the U.S. embassy to protest American use of an X-ray machine to detect structural flaws. The Soviets said it was hazardous to workers' health, but it became obvious that they were more concerned with the machine's real function: locating eavesdropping bugs that workers might be secreting in the walls...
That leaves X-ray lasers, which are being investigated under tight secrecy at the Livermore Laboratory. Grumbles Teller: "Methods that have real expectations of success are classified, and methods that have little possibility of success are advertised...
...rays by rods projecting from an atomic device in the microsecond or so before the rods themselves are vaporized. The beams are so powerful that they need no "dwell time" at all; they could knock out a missile or warhead instantaneously. Less precision is necessary in aiming them; an X-ray laser "beam" as wide as two football fields would have great destructive power...
...ideal weapon? Not quite. In theory, X-ray lasers could be based in space, but that might mean keeping something like 1,400 atomic bombs in low orbits constantly crisscrossing the Soviet Union. Says Coll, rather delicately: "I don't think it's going to be politically acceptable to put bombs in orbit." In practice, the X-ray lasers would have to be launched from earth at the first warning of attack in a "pop-up" defense (they are in fact the only laser devices compact enough for such a defense). To get high enough fast enough, they would probably...
...been found and sunk by the Soviets in advance of a nuclear assault. If the subs survived and launched their laser-generating bombs, a greater difficulty would arise. All laser beams have trouble cutting through the atmosphere to destroy missiles at the start of their flight, but X-ray lasers are among the least penetrating. They could hit missiles only at the top of the boost phase, and probably would be best used for post-boost or mid-course interception. But that is when the warheads (no longer missiles) are hardest to find because they are hidden amid swarms...